Zachary Quinto Says There Are ‘No Guarantees’ We’ll Get a ‘Star Trek 4’

Despite being supported by a blindingly charismatic cast and some of the best action directors in the business, Paramount’s Star Trekfranchise has somewhat been an exercise in diminishing returns after 2009’s big screen reboot. Last year’s Star Trek Beyondmay have captured some of the fun of a standalone episode of the series, but it was a surprising disappointment with audiences: the film’s $158 million gross was nearly $100 million less than the first entry in the series and failed to break even on Paramount’s $185 million investment. Those are the kind of numbers that make a studio think long and hard about investing in a sequel.

Thinking they are. Yesterday, Zachary Quinto (Spooooooock!) stopped by TODAY (via Heroic Hollywood) to discuss his acting career and was nudged for a few updates on the next movie in the series. And while the actor said he was “hopeful” that they’d be able to make another film, he did acknowledge that there were “no guarantees.” Quoth the Quinto:

We’re waiting. I know they’re working on the script for another one, and we’ll see how that plays out. But the nice thing about that experience is that the time in between those big tentpole films allows us to go off and cultivate a lot of different creative experiences for ourselves.

Interesting. Last summer, Star Trek 4made headlines when they announced that Chris Hemsworth would be returning to bookend his contributions to the franchise, with J.J. Abrams going so far as say that the script for the latest movie was “amazing,” but to hear Quinto describe it, the next film isn’t quite a sure thing. You would never hear a Marvel cast member describe themselves as “hopeful” that, say, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will get off the ground, suggesting that Paramount has a little less faith in its franchise going forward. Whether this is just an actor hedging his bets or real cause for alarm is unknown, but Star Trek fans had better cross their fingers that one of Star Trek 4 and Star Trek: Discoveryhits their screens in the next two years. Otherwise, they’re probably going to have to wait a while to see anything in that universe find its way back into the public.